Bob Johnson has written several important and excellent diaries recently documenting the effects of Trump’s attempts to subvert democracy. I have had several panic attacks leading to serious breathing problems when I have tried to write about this or related topics because it makes me so angry because it is so dangerous. Even the republicans who have been lauded for doing the bare minimum are still backing republican candidates who are silently complicit in the very attempts to subvert democracy that they are decrying. Brad Raffensperger and Brian Sterling are still supporting Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue even though these two republican US Senators have been silent regarding Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories and the armed mobs who are committing acts of domestic terrorism because they believe these conspiracy theories. That’s how far down the rabbit hole we are; the very best republican election official and republican elected official who are lauded for admitting that Joe Biden won a free and fair election devoid of widespread fraud and who have decried the actions of armed mobs still support the two republican US Senators running in the Georgia special election even though they both have been silent regarding Trump’s lies and baseless of claims and on the actions of the armed mobs.
Bob Johnson’s last diary pointed out how dangerous this attempt is even though it will be unsuccessful because of the incompetence of the perpetrators. This will be a precedent for republican presidential candidates who lose going forward. They have ended the obvious public peaceful transition and transfer of power. The public and peaceful transition and transfer of power manifest by the concession of the losing candidate and the public commitment to support the winner and the public commitment to unity helps to unify the country. The lack of this means that there will be about 75 million voters who despite all of the evidence to the contrary and the lack of evidence to support their baseless and false conspiracy theory believe that the loser of the 2020 presidential election actually won and wrongly believe that the winner cheated to become president. The loser’s voters are for the most part angry, racially aggrieved white men with a relatively limited education who choose (and the fact that this is a choice makes this a morally culpable action) to rely upon unreliable and dishonest conspiracy theory promoting media outlets and reject all media sources that do not promote their false views and a great many of them are armed.
We have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections and it does not look like that will be changing any time soon, if ever. The electoral college is a nightmare and it is biased towards republican presidential candidates. It is changing greatly. The upper midwest states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are closer than we would like and can conceivably be won by somebody who can maximize their turnout like Trump did. Texas is closer (6 percent) but it will be a while. Florida leans republican and falls for stupid socialist attack ads. North Carolina is close, but still republican. Ohio and Iowa are gone just like Missouri. However, Arizona and Georgia were both close in 2016 and we won them both very narrowly in 2020. So, this election is not a one off. Obviously, while we can win these states, they are at best toss-ups for us. So, the electoral college will continue to favor republican presidential candidates more than the country as a whole as measured by the popular vote. Still, we would, in general, normally be narrow favorites to win the electoral college and when Trump is not on the ballot, it has, thus far, appeared that it makes polling much more accurate and reliable and it makes it much more likely that we will do well up and down the ballot. We will have to wait to see if this theory is true. This action (to attempt to subvert democracy and reverse a loss through the judicial process, denial of certification, and attempt to convince state legislatures to select a slate of electors who favor the candidate who lost the popular vote of the state) , if competently executed, when our presidential candidate only won the electoral college narrowly, could alter who wins and who loses the presidential election going forward. And even if they fail to subvert democracy in their future attempts like they are failing in this attempt, the danger posed by these armed mobs is extraordinarily serious. The false claim, if believed, would make one believe that a coup had taken place and some who are armed are going to feel like these acts of domestic terrorism are actually justified because they believe these baseless and false conspiracies.
Americans have been voting in elections for president and the winner of the popular vote in each state has been awarded their slate of electors for hundreds of years. While the US Constitution allows state legislatures to choose how each slate of electors is chosen , state legislatures have chosen and written into state laws that the winner of the popular vote in the state gets their slate of electors selected to vote when the electoral college meets. The primary reason voters vote for a presidential candidate in the general election is because they believe that the winner of the popular vote in their state determines who wins the electoral college votes of their state and that each vote matters for that reason. The damage done to American democracy and the confidence of American voters in their democracy if due to the actions of the presidential candidate who lost the popular vote in enough states so that they had lost the electoral college vote, the same presidential candidate was awarded enough states’ electoral college votes so as to alter who obtained the most electoral college votes would be almost incalculable. The primary reason each voter votes in a presidential general election would be removed. The American federal government is already extremely insulated from and protected from the influence of a majority of America voters. Which party holds control of the state legislature in each state is not determined by which party won the cumulative votes for each parties’ candidates in each state legislature. In many states, the Democratic Party’s candidates for state legislatures win more votes in sum than the Republican Party’s candidates and yet the Republican Party holds control of the state legislature. Americans expect that you cannot change the rules of the game nor the results after you already have a winner from the rules already in place. This would be a gigantic attack upon the American concept of fairness. In law, new laws are mostly not applied retroactively. There are exceptions, but those exceptions would be done for very different motives than this alter the rules after the election attempt by Trump.
Trump has been attempting this past week to change the rules and the outcome after the election by having the state legislature of Pennsylvania select Trump’s slate of electors to be counted when the electoral college meets even though Joe Biden won the popular vote of the state of Pennsylvania and the law in Pennsylvania says that the slate of electors of the candidate who won the popular vote in the state is the one selected to vote when the electoral college meets. Even this alone would not be enough to alter who won the electoral college. Trump also has been pressuring the Georgia governor to do something he doesn’t have the legal authority to do, simply change the Georgia slate of electors voting at the electoral college vote from being Biden’s to being his own. He would still need Arizona or Michigan or another state as well. None of this is going to happen. We often, perhaps too often, use the word outrageous and so many of Trump’s actions have been truly outrageous. However, this very attempt is likely the most outrageous and evil thing he has done as president because of the consequence if he were successful.
Trump asks Pennsylvania House speaker for help overturning election results, personally intervening in a third state. President Trump called the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives twice during the past week to make an extraordinary request for help reversing his loss in the state, reflecting a broadening pressure campaign by the president and his allies to try to subvert the 2020 election result.
The calls, confirmed by House Speaker Bryan Cutler’s office, make Pennsylvania the third state where Trump has directly attempted to overturn a result since he lost the election to former vice president Joe Biden. He previously reached out to Republicans in Michigan, and on Saturday he pressured Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in a call to try to replace that state’s electors. But late last week, the House speaker was among about 60 Republican state lawmakers who sent a letter to Pennsylvania’s congressional representatives
urging them to object to the state’s electoral slate on Jan. 6, when Congress is set to formally accept the results. Although such a move is
highly unlikely to gain traction, at least one Pennsylvania Republican, Rep. Scott Perry, said in an interview Monday that he will heed the request and dispute the state’s electors.
It continues.
Kemp spokesman Cody Hall said that while the governor does have the power to call a session, he must give a reason for doing so. As in Pennsylvania, there is no legal recourse for the Georgia legislature to alter the election after the fact, and therefore no legitimate reason to call a session.
“Any attempt by the legislature to retroactively change that process for the Nov. 3rd election would be unconstitutional and immediately enjoined by the courts, resulting in a long legal dispute and no short-term resolution,” Kemp said in a joint statement issued Sunday with his lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan. “I put this guy in office. He’s there because of me,” Trump said about Kemp, railing about his “disloyalty,” one of the advisers said. … “When it comes to lawsuits, we’re one for 33. All I can say is time is ticking,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump ally who has promoted the president’s false accusations of fraud, said in an interview last week. “I told the president to keep fighting, but time matters. You’ve got to have a very coherent theory of the law. The burden of the proof is on the plaintiff.”
This is unbelievable. The false claims by the president don’t justify the actions of these armed mobs, but one can see that Trump is making such explosive claims that unbalanced, uneducated, angry and ill-informed mobs would act as they have as a result. That’s why these false, conspiratorial claims are so dangerous. They provoke acts of domestic terrorism by unstable, angry, uneducated people.
This reporting from the Washington Post is also confirmed by the New York Times.
Trump Asked Pennsylvania House Speaker About Overturning His Loss. Intensifying his efforts to undo his loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., President Trump twice called the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in recent days to encourage challenges to the official results in the state. Pennsylvania is the third state in which Mr. Trump is known to have reached out to top elected Republicans to try to reverse the will of voters. He earlier
summoned Michigan legislative leaders to the White House, and over the weekend
he pressed Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia to call upon that state’s legislature to reverse the election.
At a rally in Georgia on Saturday, Mr. Trump said Mr. Kemp “could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing.” But Mr. Kemp has repeatedly declined to call for a special session of the legislature, and state election officials
recertified Georgia’s results on Monday after another recount again showed that Mr. Biden had won the state.
This is so dangerous. If republicans in the US Congress had any integrity or character or honesty or love for our democracy at all, they would stand united together and condemn the baseless claims by Trump and these attacks upon our democracy and the acts of these armed mobs. Yes, they won’t get away with this particular attempt, but they might next time and the effort is incredibly evil and the consequence if successful would be unimaginably bad and wrong.
There is
good news about these attempts this time.
Biden Reaches Deadline That Makes Victory Nearly Irreversible. (Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden will be one formal step closer to the presidency after Tuesday’s deadline for states to certify their slates of electors to the Electoral College -- locking in the names of the people who will formally vote to make Biden the president. Once that happens, there’s little turning back. Congress must by law accept those electors if there’s no outstanding litigation, and President Donald Trump’s legal challenges have even less hope of changing the outcome. Electors meet in each state on Dec. 14 to officially cast their votes. All of the battleground states where Trump tried to contest the results have certified their presidential election tallies and appointed their electors for Biden, and he has more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed. Only Colorado and Hawaii are left to certify their results among the states Biden won but even they cannot change the outcome. Federal law says that if a state appoints its electors and all litigation is resolved by Dec. 8 -- the so-called safe harbor deadline -- Congress must consider them “conclusive” when it meets in a joint session on Jan. 6 to tally the votes.
Republicans are close to destroying this country and our democracy. It won’t happen this time, but who knows next time. And republicans in Congress won’t speak out or up for our democracy which shows how weak and evil and dishonest they are. Republican voters are not showing that they are any better other than the Never Trump republicans.
Tuesday, Dec 8, 2020 · 12:19:43 PM +00:00 · Dem
General Lloyd Austin chosen by Biden for Secretary of Defense (the letter d is barely functioning— keyboard issues — it takes five to ten seconds or longer to type the letter d to appear on my screen because it requires numerous attempts — this is as frustrating and as slow as it can be. I already lost the number six :-( :-( )
Tuesday, Dec 8, 2020 · 12:51:30 PM +00:00 · Dem
Related to my medication assisted treatment for substance abuse:
This is personal and obviously unrelated to my diary, but I am really in need of advice . On Friday, if I keep my own personal reduction schedule, then I will go down to six milligrams. However, I have consistently been reducing faster than my doctor has told me to. I was supposed to stay at ten milligrams this entire time until I met him again on the 17th. Instead, I reduced down to eight milligrams and on Friday the eleventh (according to my own reduction schedule that I (without the support of my doctor because he thinks this reduction is too fast) personally set up — going down 2 milligrams to six is next. However, now that I am relatively low, the reductions are a greater and greater percentage of my current dosage. For example, when I reduced from ten milligrams to eight milligrams, that was a 20% reduction. Going from eight milligrams to six milligrams will be a 25% reduction. Eventually when I reduce from six milligrams to four milligrams, that will be a 33% reduction. From four milligrams to two milligrams will be a 50% reduction and, of course, reducing from two milligrams to zero milligrams will be a 100% reduction.
The withdrawal symptoms will get worse and worse as I continue to reduce. Furthermore, my isolation has contributed to my panic attacks and I had one episode of confusion a week or two ago. As I wrote above, my doctor believes that I have been reducing too quickly. Daily Kos is my source of friends (my only source) and here my friends seem to be urging caution. As I approach the 11th, I wanted to get more feedback from my Daily Kos friends. I have been very consistent and diligent in reducing every two weeks. I want to show that I am 100% committed to getting to zero and doing so efficiently as well as safely, especially to my friends here who have kept me afloat. The medication has such terrible side effects for me as well — the terrible vomiting and nausea and the horrible, unimaginable insomnia (an hour of sleep at a time is just, I find, a terrible way to live) and I need to get to zero in order to get my life back, return to teaching … However, trying to reduce too quickly will have very harmful effects as well. For instance, it will increase the intensity of the withdrawal effects, the nausea and vomiting and the insomnia. It could also cause panic attacks or even confusion. For those who don’t know, I started at 32 milligrams of buprenorphine at my clinic and have reduced all the way down to 8 milligrams which is where I am at the present time. So, I have made some progress. I am 75% of the way to zero.
I would like to read some thoughts from my friends here at Daily Kos.